


Crimson Ashes

by galaxysilver



Category: Noblesse (Manhwa)
Genre: Fluff, I'm bad at writing romance, It ended up like a platonic relationship, M/M, Slow Burn, i love M-21
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-01-04 20:39:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18351293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galaxysilver/pseuds/galaxysilver
Summary: A collection of one-shots centered on the Rai/M-21 pairing. // Chapter 2: M-21 and Raizel kept throwing smiles and subtle moves and Frankenstein couldn’t stand it. He wished they could, in other words, brush their lips against the other’s, but that was too blunt and he didn’t want to be so to his Master.





	1. Bookmark

**Author's Note:**

> This series of one-shots are, well, like what’s just said, one-shots, unless stated otherwise. There are possibly one-shots that’ll get sequels, depending on my creativity (or lack thereof).

**Bookmark**

Tao brough M-21—a little by force, much to the latter’s irritation—for shopping after school to a mall not far from where they worked. His reason: M-21 needed to have more clothes for variation, which didn’t make sense for M-21, because he thought he had enough clothes? But of course, variation, in Tao’s dictionary, means 20 different pair of attire. Of course, Takeo got dragged into their shopping agenda, as well.

“Hey, M-21, this’ll look good on you!” Tao lightly grabbed a white shirt with thin black horizontal stripes on it. M-21 glanced at the shirt, quite interested. “How much is it?” M-21 said while pulling the price tag and—

 _God._ Grey eyes widened. _This is only a shirt, why is it so expensive?!_

“Yeah, no. Not gonna buy this one.” M-21 let go of the tag and sauntered away. Tao pouted and went after the man, “It’s not that expensive, come on! That’s standard price here.”

M-21 let out a snort. “We can survey other shops first. I don’t really want to spend much money on a single piece of shirt,”

With that, Tao hurriedly walked out of the shop they were in, being sure that M-21 and Takeo would follow him. “Yeah, right, now let’s do that. The most important thing now is that M-21 gets new clothes!”

Shaking his head, Takeo went after the bowl-haired man, easily catching up, courtesy of his long legs. M-21 didn’t bother to follow them immediately. Instead, he strolled slowly while his eyes flutter quickly on every shop they passed.

He halted when something caught his sight in a stationary shop.

M-21 glanced at the direction where his friends had went off to; apparently he was left far behind because of his slow walking. Deciding they’d just look for him after noticing that he had gone missing, M-21 entered the stationary shop. Without taking a look at anything else, he held the small thing that had caught his attention.

It was an all-metal bookmark clip with a small ramen ornament connected to it with thin, golden chain.

M-21 remembered a certain someone, looking at the ramen charm. He stared at the bookmark for a good minute while he let his mind pondered.

Cadis Etrama Di Raizel. A Noblesse, the strongest noble, who had helped, protected, and taken care of him after he started living in his current home. After all He had done to M-21, the werewolf heart-bearer always wanted to repay him. But he didn’t know what to do. M-21 had done his best to protect the Noblesse, but his mere strength was never enough, because he knew the Noblesse’s power was far more than his. He knew his presence had meant a lot to Raizel, since He longed for the normal life that He always wished for. He even considered M-21 His family.

But … he never thought that being by His side was enough. He wanted Raizel to remember and know him as more than just a human under His wings, more than just a family like everyone else.

Suddenly, a thought crossed his mind.

* * *

The three security guards entered their home. M-21 had two paperbags on each of his hands, while Tao completely wore different attire from his security uniform: a slightly saturated, bright yellow colored shirt and blue jeans. His uniform was in a paperbag he was holding. Takeo didn’t shop, instead he visited a salon there to have his hair done.

M-21 exhaled, long. He didn’t think their shopping time took much longer than he anticipated. After buying that ramen-themed bookmark, he was eager to go home and give it to the Noblesse, but of course Tao wanted him to buy at least a new shirt or a pair of pants (the tech master even ended up buying something for himself and got himself changed!).

Much to his pleasure, the Man whom he wanted to give a gift to _wasn’t_ in the living room. M-21 was too shy and awkward (he hated to admit it, but it was true) to give the bookmark directly to Raizel, so he decided to slip the bookmark on the top, inner corner of the gaming guide the Noblesse always read yet never master. Anything to get everything done quickly. M-21 then took some seconds to decide whether he’d left the little ramen charm dangling outside or put it inside of the book as an unnecessary surprise element. M-21 ended up putting it on the inside of the book. He let out an exhale in satisfactory.

Then he just realized something. How was the Noblesse going to know it was him who gave the bookmark if he left it this way?

 _I can just tell Him after he saw the bookmark,_ M-21 thought. But honestly he wanted to see the black-haired noble’s reaction first. M-21 hoped that He would be _at least a little happy_ to see a ramen-themed item attached to His favorite book.

Right after dinner time, M-21 finished washing the dishes and sat on the couch, along with the other household members. Raizel was on his left, sitting on a separate couch.

“So, Regis, Seira, I want to know how are you doing in school,” Frankenstein the caring and responsible headmaster started a conversation, which Seira gladly—and calmly, of course—replied, “You don’t have to worry, I got 100 on my math quiz,”

“Excellent! Seira always got high scores, I’m so proud of you,” Frankenstein smiled brightly and gave Seira slow claps. Pinkish shades appeared on the white-haired noble girl’s face. She always loved compliments.

After that, M-21 didn’t really pay attention to Regis’ complaining about chemistry class and his principal’s annoyance on his complains. His eyes were too busy glancing at the Noblesse’s direction when the Man was listening to His servant’s scientific speech.

After a few moments, Raizel’s hand began to move, reaching for the gaming guide that was sitting in front of Him. He opened it and M-21 swore he saw His eyes slightly widened by few miliseconds.

Raizel stared at the little bowl of ramen resting in the middle of two pages.

“Oh? Master, what a nice bookmark you have there,” Frankenstein noticed the ramen and smiled, concluding immediatelly that his master bought it himself. Tao, who sat on Raizel’s left, curiously bending over to see the said bookmark, “Aww, there’s a ramen charm attached to it! Where did you buy it?”

Raizel stared at the ramen bookmark for a while. “I didn’t buy this. This was already attached to my book before I opened it.”

“What? Then that means someone gave it to you?”

The Noblesse took the ramen charm, His finger sliding to touch the small chain connecting the charm, before He made a small, yet pleasant smile. “Yes.”

“But who?”

“I don’t know,” Raizel put his index finger on his chin, the smile still obvious on His face. His crimson pupils flickered through every member of the household surrounding Him. When He glanced to M-21, the modified human shifted his gaze quickly to the charm on Raizel’s hand.

Then Raizel looked at the clock. It was 11 PM. “It’s time to get some rest.”

“Right.” M-21 stood up—way too quickly he almost cut the Noblesse’s words—and paced to his room after nodded slightly to Raizel. Everyone collectively followed what M-21 did and decided to go to their own rooms to sleep until tomorrow.

The grey-haired man felt relieved, yet internally cursed for not telling the Noblesse the person giving Him the charm. But at least he saw the Man’s smile … which meant He was happy, right?

* * *

 The next day wasn’t too different from yesterday. M-21 did his routine of securing the school from any kind of problems with Tao and Takeo, and Raizel was in His class with the children before going out to play in PC Room. Everything went as usual.

When M-21 arrived home, he saw Raizel, already at home, standing in front of his room.

M-21 blinked few times before asking, “Were you waiting for me?”

Keeping His silence, Raizel turned to M-21. He took M-21’s hand and put a palm-size, grey paperbag on it.

Grey eyes fluttered, M-21 didn’t make any effort to hide his bewilderment.

“Thank you for yesterday.”

“…What?”

“The ramen bookmark,” Raizel gradually made a warmest smile that the modified human had ever seen. “it was you, wasn’t it?”

Widened ashen eyes snapped at a pair of crimson, disbelief clear on his face. “How did you know?”

“I just know,” Raizel answered vaguely. “I like the present. But why did you give me one?”

The modified human still wondered how did the Noblesse found out about who gave him the present, but he couldn’t help raising both corners of his mouth slightly when he heard the first sentence. But, _Why, He asked?_

“I’m glad you like it. It’s just that…” _I’m grateful for everything you did._ Before anything else came out of M-21’s mouth, he started to feel that his small present for Raizel wasn’t near everywhere to repay Him. It was his intention in the beginning, but now he was too ashamed to tell the Noblesse that was exactly his reason. He suddenly thought of Frankenstein, the rich man, who probably already bought Raizel everything. Or made. It was Frankenstein, after all. The man could do anything. But M-21 was not Frankenstein. And a small bookmark with small ramen charm attached to it was just _worthless_ compared to what the scientist had done to his master.

“…I want to make you happy.”

M-21 internally cursed himself. What love song did he just quote?!

But there was no respond. All M-21 saw was the seemingly long corridor where they stood, the Noble’s stone-stiff body, and the Latter’s smile fadening.

The grey-haired man unconsiously fidgeted, his hand moved to hold the other hand. “I—ah, sorry, it’s … not good isn’t it? The gift?” _Or was it what he just said?_

Raizel, still stiff and eye-piercing (M-21 wished the Noblesse wasn’t so intimidating at this time, because _damn_ he now was nervous as heck), began to relax. A faint blush slowly appeared on His pale-colored face.

At that exact time, M-21 went _oh_.

“M-21,” Raizel let out a sigh, the smile that was gone came back to paint His face, “if I don’t like the gift, I wouldn’t respond with another gift, would I?”

If not because of Raizel reminding him, M-21 would already forget that he was holding something that Raizel gave him.

“This,” The modified human steadily raised the hand with the aforementioned present on it, incredulity palpable on his face, “you gave this as a response to my gift?”

Raizel nodded slowly.

Looking at Raizel brimming with merriment, M-21 couldn’t help but to smile too. That was the first time ever for M-21 to see the Noblesse being so expressive in front oh him. The bookmark was just a small gift and him buying it was a spontaneity, but His eyes, His lips, His everything, at all once, smiled at the modified human. It was like that Cadis Etrama Di Raizel unexpectedly received a gift from an unexpected person, or even received a gift for the first time.

Or maybe … He was glad that someone—besides Frankenstein—actually, genuinely wanted to make Him happy?

“Thank you,” M-21 finally said. Without realizing it, his face went faintly even more pink.

Raizel nodded.

Both the Noble and the modified human seemed to have an awkward smiling battle for a while before Raizel broke the silence, “You can open it now.”

“Huh? Right now?”

Raizel nodded, again.

M-21 oblige and start opening the paperbag—slowly so he didn’t make much mess, because it was a Raizel that gave it to him.

The modified human slid a finger inside the paperbag and pulled a keychain.

With a grey half-body wolf charm attached to it.

M-21 went dead-silent. He stared at the keychain— _the freaking wolf charm_ —held in his hand. His expression unreadable.

“You have a werewolf heart, and fight like a werewolf, so I thought I’d give you that.” Raizel seemed _weirdly too spirited_ while explaining His reason of giving such present to the younger man.

“…”

“…”

“…”

Raizel’s mouth steadily went flat and his brows frowned. That silence was too long…

“…Not good?”


	2. Subtle Moves (1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collection of one-shots centered on the Rai/M-21 pairing. // Chapter 2: Subtle Moves (1). M-21 and Raizel kept throwing smiles and subtle moves and Frankenstein couldn't stand it. He wished they could, in other words, brush their lips against the other's, but that was too blunt and he didn't want to be so to his Master.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This series of one-shots are, well, like what’s just said, one-shots, unless stated otherwise. There are possibly one-shots that’ll get sequels, depending on my creativity (or lack thereof).
> 
> This one is just Frankenstein being exasperated seeing two beings probably liking each other but didn’t do anything further to advance their relationship. Or not. o(--(
> 
> This is supposed to be one shot but it got too long for my liking :( and I don't want to 'abandon' this series. When was the last time I posted something? Lmao. Yep, I guess this one's multichapter, maybe twO?

**Subtle Moves (1)**

Frankenstein saw it. Maybe they thought no one noticed, or maybe they thought that what they did—or usually do—weren’t of importance to others, including the Dark Spear wielder. One day, Raizel spared exactly five seconds during dinner time for His attention to shift to a particular grey-haired modified human, said human was sipping on the broth of his bowl of ramen. Then, he saw something else after that. They had some snacks while chattering about their usual routine in school, at home, and neither of the two. Mostly neither. Damn Union wouldn’t stop bothering their peaceful life.

Frankenstein was observant. He paid attention to his surrounding, objects and people. From body movement to faces. So it wasn’t too extraordinary for him to notice M-21 staring at a pale hand of Cadis Etrama Di Raizel taking a cookie from His plate to His mouth. After that, the werewolf-heart bearer quickly blinked and looked at random direction with perplexed look on his face.

The next few days weren’t very different … at least not significantly. When the three modified humans met Raizel on the school gate, they nodded slightly out of politeness and respect to Him, which the Latter responded with an even lighter nod. Then the Noblesse sauntered away, accompanied by His ordinary human friends and the other two young nobles who barged into his school the other day. It was something Frankenstein encountered everyday when he went home with his Master, nothing unusual. Except he caught M-21 staring longer to his Master’s back compared to the other two, even after He walked away. The younger modified human noticed the principal peering over his shoulder and was about to break the attention when a voice too familiar was heard.

“Frankenstein, you can go first.”

“What? Oh—“ It was his Master’s—“Is there anything you want to do, Master?”

Raizel turned his whole body to face the opposite direction. “Just a second.”

The Noble continued to tread His way with firm steps. When He stopped in front of M-21, the security guard was stiff and his ashen-eyes was on a pair of crimson questioningly. But M-21 had to feel confident and assuring as a guard in a prestigious school, so he fixed his stance and faced the Noblesse properly.

“Is—“ “M—“

“What?” said M-21 reflexively.

“I just want to ask,” A silence, “where is the location of the newly opened ramen restaurant you found yesterday.”

Actually, it was Tao who found it first, and the man invited everyone to eat there. Frankenstein refused at first; he haughtily yet playfully stated that his ramen is the best, most delicious and nutritious, always a masterpiece! Well, everyone hardly disagreed, even Seira, his confidant in cooking. In the end, he complied to bring everyone there under a pretext of tasting other chef’s ramen to improve his.

Frankenstein kept watching, unreadable look on his face. Raizel could actually ask his servant for direction; he was standing closer to his Master. But the Noblesse chose to ask someone who was ten meters away from Him. Nothing weird, nothing unusual.

The young modified human didn’t let out any sound or make any movement. His lips were parted slightly, eyebrows furrowed (probably thinking, expecting the Man in front of him to ask someone else about this very remarkably unimportant question, or scrutinizing every detail of his Master’s face, but who knew). His gaze shifted to the side in a flash before answering, “It’s next to the building across the museum you visited three days ago during the study tour, only few meters from there.”

Raizel nodded in respond. _Wait_ —Frankenstein noticed— _He smiled too?_  

That _was_ different.

The rest of that day was spent by his Master hanging out with His friends in the aforementioned ramen restaurant. Frankenstein didn’t see anything strange after that.

There was also an occurrence at home, when there were only the three of them: Frankenstein, his Master, and his first modified-human employee. It was yesterday. M-21 was about to take his cup of tea, but he accidentally nudged Raizel’s gaming book and it felt. He then crouched, while muttering “I’m sorry”, to put the book back.

When his hand reached the book, another hand touched the back of his.

Raizel was beside him, crouching too. And reaching too. And they _touched_.

Frankenstein, whom had been sitting on the couch and internally gasped, kept witnessing the event unfolding.

They froze in that position for seconds; it seemed that the both of them had lost their reflexes. Or something else. It was definitelly something else. The silent observer on the side was certain, because he felt something, feelings, from Raizel. Surprise, fluster, like when someone wasn’t sure of what he was doing, and another thing that Frankenstein felt through his link with his Master. An undescribable pleasant feeling. Did Raizel just unwittingly and recklessly connect to His servant in the middle of this happening?

Frankenstein eyed Raizel. There was a faint blush on His face.

He eyed the other person. He looked _worse_.

Silver eyes were wide on the hand touching his, and a thin shade of red slowly but surely start coloring the young man’s cheeks. He turned even pinker than he already was.

M-21 frantically took the book and put it back on the table, avoiding the fingers that touched his hand.

_Ah._

This looked exactly like that cheesy drama and _shoujo_ manga scene that Frankenstein was unwilling to see. Something like this rarely happened in real life, and he didn’t expect that it happened to two of most silent, aloof, and distant people in his house. Really.

Master had always been good at keeping a neutral expression and controlling His emotion. Only someone who had lived with Him for ages would be able to read through the slightest change of behavior and feeling that the Noblesse had. Well, being bonded to Him also helped, but still. How Raizel faced the young modified human with how He did the others were comparably different, the doctor must admit. And those mentioned were the obvious ones. He was able to recall the times when one of them stole glances when the other wasn’t aware every time they were together and not in battle. Or when Raizel actually direct His vision to M-21 when he was giving reports, instead of His tea. Also all those late-night meetings on the balcony. Not that often, but when it happened, it was a long session of silence with a fair amount of talking in between while standing five feet apart. And when He faintly showed how worried He was when the group didn’t find M-21 immediatelly after a heavy battle. Or when M-21 was swallowed by the same feelings of worry and afraid when Raizel went to sleep because He had used too much power, even though Frankenstein had reminded him that it was temporary and He would wake up.

Huh. That was actually quite a lot.

Frankenstein had have an idea behind preceeding events that had transpired, it was after witnessing what happened between them and perceived the Master’s feelings that he was almost completely sure now. Almost. The man didn’t want to jump into conclusion too eagerly. He needed more to prove his guess.

* * *

They were still doing it.

They were still at it.

Cadis Etrama Di Raizel and M-21 were still staring—and throwing subtle, vague gestures—at each other.

Frankenstein had taken a note that sometimes they stared at each other at the same time, which means both beings knew that the other stared at them. When that happened, usually it didn’t last for too long. Besides, if it did, the others might already noticed, or even made a comment or question about it. His Master also started to behave in a more open manner towards the modified human. When one of them just arrived at a place where the other were, he often, smoothly and innocently, picked a comfortable position near the other. Yes, Frankenstein remembered that time when they had a tea time together in his office, M-21 surprisingly sat next to Raizel. On the same sofa. Only few centimeters separated them. Raizel spared a glance, but let him did what he did.

Frankenstein inwardly let out a fascinated hum. Never did the grey-eyed man do that. Which means they had gotten closer, hadn’t they?

The Dark Spear owner thought that they would go for bolder move. They’ve been doing this staring and subtle move competition for, what, months? And he hadn’t counted all the ones _not_ happened in the house.

It actually piqued him in a weird way, if he must admit involuntarily.

That was why Frankenstein decided he wanted to get to the root of this matter.

After the three security guards and the noble children had gone to their respective rooms, Frankenstein approached Raizel with another cup of tea on a tray. He took an already empty cup on the table in front of the Noblesse, then put the one he just brought on the same place. Raizel was reading his gaming book for a short while before taking the cup and a sip.

It might be the right time to talk about this.

“Master,” Frankenstein broke the silence, “I’m really sorry if this comes out as rude, I simply want to fulfill my curiosity and—“

“Frankenstein,” Raizel lowered His cup to the saucer. “I know what you’ve been wanting to know.” He turned to Frankenstein and saw a twitch on his face. The servant stood patiently and unnoticeably lowered his head and took a quick look at Raizel. Of course his Master would know.

“Is it strange if I make an effort to be closer to people?”

A pair of blue eyes blinked.

Raizel fell silent discerning His servant’s confusion. “I asked because you wanted to know.” He took another sip of His sugar-filled tea. Frankenstein scrunched.

“Master.”

Raizel turned to Frankenstein again after a long pause.

“You made an effort to be closer to one person. _One_.”

Now it was Raizel’s time to scrunch.

Raizel lowered His cup, even slower than the first time. His gaze was steady at the surface of the brown-clear liquid inside the cup.

“I don’t understand. I treat everyone equally … well.” At least, that’s what Raizel believed.

“Yes, but You treated this one particular person differently,” said Frankenstein, before he added, “Ah, also, You behave differently when You’re around him.”

“How is it different?”

“Let’s see, from what I’ve seen,” The scientist put a finger on his chin, smiling amusedly, “You quite obviously talked more to him. You glanced to him occasionally when he wasn’t looking. You often took chances of conversing—or even just interacting—with him. Your posture was always more open when he was around,”

“I didn’t do all of that to M-21 only.”

“I haven’t even mentioned any name.”

Frankenstein could feel Raizel twitched internally. His grin got wider.

The Noble was stiff as a stone, His hand hesitantly approached the cup. He didn’t take any sip.

“Master,” Frankenstein took a seat near his Master, delight and curiosity pronounced in his sky-blue eyes. It was the satisfactory of acquiring the accurate result from his observation that got the ball rolling—he is a scientist, after all.

“I know You and he sometimes were together on the balcony. And I wasn’t even spying.” It wasn’t like Raizel (and M-21) kept company of each other and hid it, Frankenstein was sure the other household members knew the routine, yet they didn’t say anything—or they were good at self preservation. “And when you accidentally touched him when he took the book, I…”

A moment of silence. “I sensed your emotion. You let me feel it.”

And it was one proof that gave it away, because Frankenstein was well aware of how emotionally preserved his Master is. And He was _reckless_. Yet it was just _a touch_.

When Frankenstein took a look at Raizel again, His pair of crimson eyes were wide.

Raizel sighed. He slowly closed His fluttering eyes.

“I don’t know, Frankenstein,” The Noblesse lowered His head. “I’ve never felt like this since … forever.”

Another sigh.

Frankenstein, without any notice given to him, suddenly felt a burst of emotion spilling to him through his link, overwhelming him with strange yet familiar feelings of something he never felt since ages. Fondness, warmth, tenderness, anxiety, fading denial and arising realization, all mixed and were swarming… None of them directed at him. His Master had broken the dam, and He so much trusted Frankenstein to let the water flows.

A paint of astonishment colored the scientist’s face, his hand reaching the air, and he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to get a hold of his chest or his Master.

All those emotions came not from nothing, and Raizel had no intention to hide them, not from His most loyal servant, not anymore. All these mundane, small gestures and vague attitude, it was all His only way to express His growing affection towards the man whom He just met few months ago. Whom He barely interact with.

“Why?”

Raizel opened His eyes that He didn’t realize had closed and looked up to Frankenstein. A pair of stern blue eyes met His gaze.

“Why didn’t you tell him?”

Because after routinely witnessing a cliché real-life romance drama unfolding right in front of him, and the Other Man, Frankenstein was sure as heaven that he reciprocated the feelings.

Well, almost. Frankenstein wasn’t a mind reader like his Master.

The Master was unspeaking for a while. “I’m all right with what I have now.”

Frankenstein didn’t respond and Raizel took it as a request for elaboration. “I don’t want to ruin the relationship that I currently have with him.”

“But,” Frankenstein wished he could voice his thought, “you didn’t even tell him at all.”— _he might return the feeling._ At first, he wondered whether Raizel read the young man’s mind, though this talk just confirmed that He, surprisingly, did not.

“Just let it be as it is.”


End file.
